Method of protecting dikes.



UN ran STATES l ATENl FFICE.

METHOD OF PROTECTING DIKES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 699,395, dated May 6, 1902.

Application filed September 27,- 1901- To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, WINFIELD S. KEYES, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, have invented an Improvement in Methods of Protecting Dikes; and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention relates to improvements in means for protecting dikes, levees, and like earth structures from the destructive burrowing influences of gophers, squirrels, 850., and at the same time serving to resist the action of the waves.

It consists, essentially, in coating the surfaces of said structures with crude petroleum or other hydrocarbon products to form a crust or surface impermeable to water and distasteful to rodents.

In this and many other States thousands of acres of arable land have been reclaimed from overflow. These lands are protected by levees or dikes, generally of earth and often built at great expense. During periods of high water and flood these levees have to be patrolled continually to discover any signs of a break. The levees are favorite places for gophers, squirrels, and like burrowing animals. The holes which these pests make during the summer, ramifying throughout the structure, serve as inlets for the water when the river rises. Rushing through these holes'the water soon wears away openings so large that in a short time, if not discovered by the patrol, a break is made in the levee and the inrushing flood submerges and ruins the land hitherto protected. It has been discovered that by coating the surfaces of these dikes or levees with hydrocarbon products, particularly crude petroleum, that a compact and durable surface is formed which will not only resist the wash of the waves and prevent seepage, but its greatest advantage lies that it forms such a hard gummy compound that rodents cannot puncture it. Experience shows one reason for this latter feature to lie in the fact that the incisors of the burrower becomes so Serial No. 765800- (No specimens.)

clogged with the viscouscompound of oil and sand as practically to disable him. The result has been that wherever this method has been introduced there is a notable absence of squirrels and gophers, and the necessity of maintaining an expensive patrol in times of high water has accordingly disappeared.

The use of oil avoids the necessity of planting trees, such as willows, to withstand the lashing of the waves, the roots of the trees too often adding to the disintegration of the levee.

If desired, the surface of the dike may be given a preparatory dressing of broken rock,- gravel, or sand. This dressing, when the oil is poured thereover, either in a hot or cold state, becomes impregnated with the oil to such an extent as to form an impermeable cement which renders the dike waterproof and, moreover, absolutely obstructive to burrowing animals.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Pat ent, is-

1. A method of protecting dikes, levees and the like, which consists in coating the surface of said dikes or levees with hydrocarbon products to form a tough viscous covering.

2. A method of protecting dikes, levees and the like from gophers and like rodents, which consists in coating the surface of said dikes or levees with crude petroleum to form a hard crust.

3. A method of protecting earthen dikes, levees and the like which consists in coating the surface of the dike or levee with broken rock, gravel or sand and applying a hydrocarbon compound such as crude petroleum to said coating to form a tough impermeable crust or surface that will resist the action of the waves and prove distasteful to rodents. h In witness whereof I have hereunto set my and.

IVINFIELD' S. KEYES.

lVitnesses:

J NO. W. MAXWELL, S. PATTEE. 

